Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

128 SENECAextraordinary distinctness, especially as you were whenI was quitting you. I see you swallowing your tearsand attempting in vain to show no signs of the strongemotion you felt. I seem but yesterday to have lostyou. But to those who remember, what may not be called'yesterday ' ?Only yesterday I sat as a boy underSotion the philosopher, yesterday Ibegan to plead causes,yesterday I ceased to wish to plead, yesterday I becameunable to plead. Infinite is the swiftness of time. Wesee this most clearly when we look back, for it escapesthe notice of men intent on the present, so unbroken andcontinuous is time's headlong flight. The reason is this.All time past is in the same position ; you may regard itas a whole, it is spread before you and uniform all :thingsbelonging to it are merged in the same abyss, nor, whenthe whole is brief, can long intervals within it exist.Our actual life is a point, less than a point but; nature,to make it seem longer, has divided it into parts. Oneshe has made infancy, another childhood, another youth,another the interval between youth and old age, anotherold age itself. How many degrees in so narrow a space !But a little time ago I was in your company, yet thislittle time is a considerable part of our life ;on thebrevity of which we should constantly meditate. I usednot to think the passage of Time so rapid. Now itsflight seems to me incredibly swift ;whether it is thatI see the goal approaching, or whether I have begun tonotice and reckon up all I lose.^And inPompeii againown youth.a later letter he relates how the sight ofrecalled to him Lucilius and hisLucilius raised himself from small beginningsby his own industry and talents. During thereigns of Caligula and Claudius he is said tohave played a difficult part with honour to him-1Ep» 49.